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A REVIEW OF EX-GOV.'ANDREW'S ARGUMENT FOR LICENSE. 



BY 



REV. W. H. H. MURRAY. 



Delivered at the CORNER CHURCH, WEST MERIDEN, 

Sabbath Evening, April 28, 186T. 



Published and circulated by his Congregation, and the " Mass. Tem- 
perance Alliance." 




/ 




cli 



NEW YOKK: 
JOHN J. REED, PRINTER, 43 CENTRE STREET. { 








*\ 



'Vr 



REVIEW 



Ladies and Gentlemen : — I propose to review before you, 
to-night, the argument of ex-Gov. Andrew, recently made 
before a committee appointed by the Massachusetts legis- 
lature to hear testimony for and against the petition of 
certain parties, praying for a repeal of the Prohibitory law, 
so called, and the enactment of a License law as its sub- 
stitute. 

The unusual interest excited, both among total-abstinence 
men and their opponents, not merely in Massachusetts but 
throughout the country, by the ex-Governor's effort, springs 
not from the professed object of the argument, which was 
to secure the passage of one form of legislation in the place 
of another, but from the real effect of the address, which 
was to overthrow no particular phase of legislation, but to 
sweep from under our feet the very foundations which un- 
derlie the temperance movement. 

Iiad the gentleman confined himself solely to the matter 
involved in the petition, whatever had been the issue of the 
contest, it would have been local in its character, and com- 
paratively circumscribed in its effect. Had such been the 
case, there would have been no necessity, indeed I may say 
no opportunity for this review. But, prompted by personal 
reasons of hostility to the cause and its advocates, or else 
driven to it by unexpected developments of the examina- 
tion, the gentleman was either forced to vary his original 
programme, or else he gladly seized the opportunity fur- 
nished by the occasion to attack the entire movement and 
array his opinions against the teachings of men who are 
striving to base the reform upon the sure and abiding foun- 
dation of scientific researches and conclusions. Be the 



4- rf ftnv Andrew is of sucli 
ca.se what it may, the "g^J^ ibat it was address- 
a character as to forbid the assump onolince d. 

ed to the -rfTtoSJSTi speaker was really ad- 
Over the head of his auaixo, r ^ ^ com . 

Jessing the Ameri canpeopb, B* J£ ^ ^^etts 
m ittee, nor to the leg* > > and ^ thl , ug bon 
alone, bnt to every ™*»™™ ^on merely, but to all 
the land ; not, indeed, to this gen ^ not 

who successively are to come ^ * ^ but he threw 
» p on his i^^^^Xtdtopersonieonflictevery 
down the gauntlet and changed _ to p ^ 

temperance teacher and advocate i tlem an felt 

no t i-ead his argument and not see ^hat t ^ ^ ^ ^ 
this. He realized his I***™ legis lature, and that 

principles and men. . to Ws argument 

This is the consideration which 1 g ^ and ;t „ 

the applause or repro^^ sectio nof his address, 
because he has, especially m Ui ^ doctmeSi 

ma de assertions totally at va„«ic, ^ ^ 

which I have proclaimed m j our « t 

co-laborers all over ^*X* i^W, *«* X ^ 
ing, that it is proper, and melee . g correct 

i this review before T^Jf^ not to be disputed 
in his reasoning, if his aut doct rines true. It 

then is his position rmpregr ^eana^ ^ j ^ ^ 
be is right, then are we all wrong. ^ m 

you to-night, by way ° f a ^nse and attack-defense of 
take of the nature bo h of deten ^ before 

the P^^^^PT'Taluck upon those opinions and 
in iation to alcohol, and attack up ^.^ rf ^ 

deductions more especially founa 

gentleman's argument, ^^ x respe ctfully 

To the review, as now 
solicit your attention : 



Those of you who have read the gentleman's argument 
will remember that he asks the question, " what is a stimu- 
lant?" and endeavors to establish a definition of stimulant 
which shall remove the odium of imbibition. 

"Is a substance intrinsically deleterious for diet," he 
inquires, " because it is a stimulant? Is it justly a reproach 
to a man that he uses stimulants ?" " Let us not be deceiv- 
ed by words," he continues, " let us probe this question." 

The desire of the ex-Governor to ascertain truth is 
admirable. We say, with him, let us not be deceived by 
words. The advocates of prohibition are no theorists. We 
strive to legislate in favor of no dogma, but to overthrow a 
gigantic evil. We combat no visionary speculations, but 
sink our ax into the trunk of a Upas, whose ramifications 
enter a million of homes, heavily loaded with the clusters 
of death. We contend in favor of no school ; we seek to 
build up no speculative fabric ; we desire only the good of 
society ; to defend unprotected innocence, and to wrench 
the spade from the hands of that traffic which is tunneling 
our country with the graves of drunkards. 

The passage containing the definition of a stimulant is so 
important, both because he founds upon it many plausible 
conclusions, and because, as it seems to us, it is replete with 
sophistry, that we quote it in full : 

" Stimulant are only energetic stimuli. Now all living 
acts require stimuli : the eye light, the egg and seed heat 
or heat and moisture, the stomach food, sometimes condi- 
ments. It is hard to draw the line. Ninon de l'Enclos 
said her soup made her tipsy, and convalescents have been 
said to get drunk on a beefsteak. That which is a stimulus 
to one person is a stimula?i£ to another. The last term 
means only a more concentrated form of stimilus, or one 
which acts more vigorously than ordinary stimuli, for any 
reason in itself or in the person." 

It is not the definition itself, which simply asserts that 
stimuli is only a more concentrated form of stimulus, that 
we call in question, but it is the effort made to blend the 
two, making the stronger synonymous with the weaker, and 
the inferences drawn therefrom, which we criticise. It is 



not the definition of his authority, but the logic of the appli- 
cation that we oppose. 

He says, for instance : " Stimulants are only energetic 
stimuk'." Now all living acts require stimuli ; the eye the 
stimulus of light ; the egg of heat ; the seed of heat and 
moisture ; and, mark the descent, the stomach of food. His 
point is to establish, you see, this : Since all living acts 
require stimuli, and as stimulants are only energetic stimuli, 
therefore all living acts require stimulants. And since 
alcohol is a stimulant, therefore the stomach, being one 
form of life, requires alcohol. 

You see now the importance of the definition, and of the 
conclusions which he draws from it. 

The sophistry is apparent. We admit that the eye 
requires light, and that light, in a certain sense, is stimulus. 
But how the gentleman can reason from light to alcohol, 
agents so entirely diverse in origin and action, or how he 
can reason from the eye to the stomach, organs physiolo- 
gically so dissimilar in construction and use, is beyond our 
comprehension ; for of course any person can see that there 
must be a similarity between the agents, and the objects of 
any course of action, or any result, to constitute an analogy. 
If any of you wish to test the vast difference between the 
nature and action of two stimuli, the one light, the other 
alcohol, insert a drop of the latter under the lid of the eye, 
and contrast the agony which follows the action of the one 
with the painlessness and pleasure which accompany the 
action of the other. And as no other organ in the whole 
system is more delicate and sensitive than the stomach, so 
much so that even the inhalation of impure air causes a 
reaction therein, consider what must be the effect following 
the introduction, in large and continued doses, of so fiery an 
agent as alcohol. "Let us not be deceived with words, 
gentlemen ; let us probe this question." Or, again, take an 
egg, which acted upon by the stimuli of heat, generates a 
certain form of life : but, were it possible, insert alcohol, I 
^are not in how small a quantity, within the shell of an 
egg, and see if ages of incubation would produce a chicken. 



What analogy, then, is there between heat acting on the 
egg and alcohol acting on the stomach ? Or take the illus- 
tration of the seed, and its relation to the stimuli of heat 
and moisture. We admit that it is by the co-operative 
action of these upon the vital principle in seeds that all 
manner of vegetable life is generated. Through these do 
roses blossom and trees grow. Through these grasses 
spring up and leaves come forth. At the root of the oak, 
and underneath the rose, the divinely appointed stimuli of 
moisture and heat are busy in their beneficent and con- 
structive processes. But, in the place of these, substitute 
that poisonous agent which the gentleman is pleased to 
confound with the harmless stimuli of nature, and see how 
long forest or shrub would endure. What analogy, then, 
is there between agents made of God to preserve and per- 
petuate life, and an agent begotten of man's wicked inge- 
nuity, the action of which is death ? " Let us not be 
deceived by words; let us probe the question." 

" Kinon de 1' Enclos/' he says, " was made tipsy on soup, 
and convalescents have been said to get drunk on beef- 
steak." This is a point upon which " common experience," 
which the ex-Governor is pleased to quote in another con- 
nection, would seem to be legitimate. I regret that he did 
not see fit to avail himself of its valuable decision in this 
connection. I would assist the gentleman's memory, and 
suggest that an appeal be made to the experience of man- 
kind to say whether the habitual result of soup eating is 
drunkenness, or the physiological effect of beefsteak is 
intoxication. If soup and steak were the agents of such 
demoralization, the source of such crime, and the cause of 
such wretchedness as alcohol is known to be, then would 
the analogy be complete, and prohibitionists illogical in 
excepting kindred elements from like legislation. Then 
would we join in a crusade against the one as we now con- 
tend with the other, defended as it is by the reputation, the 
eloquence and vast mental resources of its learned advo- 
cate, for it must be remembered that under the toga of this 
Demosthenes lifting up his voice in our modern Athens 



6 

every influence born in brothels and nursed on crime makes 
its shelter to-day. Let it not be forgotten that the highest 
literary culture, and the profoundest judicial knowledge, 
lift their shield, in the person of the author of this argu- 
ment, above the cowering form of that monster which by 
the unanimous consent of courts and judges has been and 
is to-day the cause of four-fifths of all the crimes com- 
mitted in the land. 

The gentleman asserts, further on, that the statement 
that " light wine, ale, beer and cider act, when moderately 
used, as a poison, is contradicted also by common expe- 
rience." I mention this at this point in order to call your 
attention to the character of the data upon which this and 
many other assertions in the argument are based. While I 
do not deny that the experience of mankind may be often 
assumed as the ground of a statement, yet I do most 
emphatically deny that in questions of science the expe- 
rience of the masses is ever to be considered authority. 
Especially is this style of reasoning open to criticism when 
the persons whose experience is appealed to have not only 
little or no knowledge of the point in debate, but when 
they are subject to every motive born of prejudice, appe- 
tite and custom to give ex parte testimony. For instance : 
I would submit to you whether the opinion of a habitual 
tippler, whatever may be his pursuit or profession, should 
have any considerable weight in this discussion. I submit, 
further, if the voice of the masses is to be admitted to 
influence the decision of a question, which, by the gentle- 
man's confession, belongs to the domain of purely scientific 
investigation, and concerning which new and valuable data 
are yearly being made. 

In view of these considerations, I confess to a surprise 
that the gentleman should check himself in his review of 
scientific authorities, and, in that portion of his argument 
professedly based upon such data alone, appeal to opinions 
which in the nature of the case are and must be drawn from 
widely different sources than those from which he is striv- 
ing to establish its statements. What an oracle is that, 



and what is the value of his testimony, which is the very 
embodiment of just those passions and N prejudices which 
unfit it for calm and intelligent decisions ! What a vast 
descent is that which the gentleman makes when he leaves 
the labratory of the chemist and enters the bar-room of a 
tavern ! What a transition, almost farcical, to turn from 
men like Carpenter, Lees and Lallemand, to cite loafers, beer- 
guzzlers, and all that mass of imbruited ignorance whose 
" experience" the gentleman has correctly characterized as 
" common /" I do not say that experience may never be 
appealed to, or that in some matters its testimony would 
not be to a certain extent authoritative. But it must be 
experience in no way connected with appetite, in no way 
blinded by self-interest, in no way modified by prejudice. 
The observation of the wise is valuable ; the experience of 
the intelligent to be desired. But the masses whose expe- 
rience is the most profound in this matter, I think I may 
justly say, are for the most" part neither wise nor intelli- 
gent. 

The instance, and the only one adduced to sustain this 
unusual digression, is the case of a man, Cornaro by name, 
who is said to have restricted himself to a diet of twelve 
ounces of solid food and fourteen ounces of wine per day. 
This case is quoted from the statistics of Carpenter, who 
says concerning it that Cornaro's diet " was chiefly vege- 
table matter and fourteen ounces of light wine for a period 
of forty-eight years." 

I call your attention again to the character of the wine 
drank by this prodigy of longevity. It is called " light," 
and such a wine has in it only some ten or fifteen per cent 
of alcohol, and granting that one case is enough to form an 
opinion upon, concerning so intricate a matter, what logic 
is that which reasons from wine with twelve per cent of 
alcohol to a liquor like whisky or brandy with fifty per 
cent ? None know better than the distinguished gentleman 
himself that ISew England is not Italy; that the traffic 
which the prohibitionists chiefly seek to curtail is not one 
in the lighter stimulants, but one in the more deadly ; that 



8 

it is not merely the juice of the grape which we combat, 
but the fatal production of the still ; that we seek to pro- 
tect the masses and ourselves, not from the drinking cus- 
toms of the ancients, but from the drinking customs of the 
moderns ; not from the classic beverages of Greece and the 
mild liquors of Italy, but from poison the most intense, from 
adulterations the most fatal, and customs which are grow- 
ing to be yearly more disastrous. 

I proceed now to call your attention to another specimen 
of his authorities. I select them indiscriminately, and use 
them as samples of all the rest : " If anything deserves the 
name of a food assuredly oxygen does, for it is the most 
necessary element in every process of life." 

You will all perceive that the term " food" is not used in 
the ordinary sense of the word, for food in common language 
means nutriment ; that which goes to support life by being 
received within, and assimilated by the organism ; espe- 
cially, says Webster, " what is eaten by animals as nourish- 
ment." Now in this sense oxygen, which is a mere gas, 
one of the elements of the atmosphere, is not food. It is 
not eaten as we eat the flesh of animals. It is not digested 
by the stomach as are meat and bread. It does not even 
enter into the blood as a nutritive element, from which 
fiber and sinew can be made. It is an essential assistant to 
the organism, aiding transformations and changes upon the 
harmonious development of which life is dependent. This 
and nothing more. You observe how necessary it is, there- 
fore, that these discriminations should be made, for the 
right understanding of what the authority granted is 
intended to teach. 

You see, too, how an unscientific man would be totally 
misled, in perusing a speech full of language used only in 
a technical and purely scientific manner, but which is quoted 
in the argument as if it expressed the ideas of common 
speech. And a large share of the mischief which this ar- 
gument is calculated, I had almost said intended, to do, is 
by misleading and bewildering the masses who peruse it, 
through the skilful employment of terms and phrases, the 



true meaning of which they have few if any facilities to 
discover. "When any person argues that alcohol is food, 
meaning only that its action resembles in some respects the 
action of an atmospheric element, but from which the ma- 
jority of people would naturally and innocently draw other 
conclusions, his argument is open to the charge of being 
subtle, instead of honest ; of confirming erroneous instead 
of promulgating true conceptions. Dr. Anstie continues : 

" It is highly suggestive, then, to find that that very same 
quiet and perfect action of the vital functions, without 
undue waste, without hurry, without pain, without exces- 
sive material growth, is precisely what we produce, when 
we produce any useful effect, by the administration of sti- 
mulants." 

I have nothing to say concerning this passage, save that 
the theory here advocated has been scouted and rejected by 
the highest authorities, both in England and on the conti- 
nent. And, had I time, the position here taken could be 
disproved from the writings of the most scientific men, who 
have investigated the action of alcohol upon the nervous 
and muscular organism. I have quoted it, for the purpose 
of introducing the three lines which follow, as originally 
written by Dr. Anstie : 

" Though, as might be expected, our artificial means are 
weak and uncertain in their operation, compared with the 
great natural stimulus of life. 1 ' 

A most remarkable confession, considering the connection 
in which they stand, and one which yields us the whole 
ground in the debate. For what we prohibitionists claim 
is that, in the first place, alcohol is not food in the ordinary 
acceptation of the word ; and, secondly, even when em- 
ployed as a stimulant, it is, in the language of Dr. Anstie, 
" weak and uncertain in its operation, compared with the 
great natural stimulus of life." And how can one advocate 
the general, promiscuous and unrestrained use of an agent 
which is in its nature intense poison, and in its operation 
the harshest of irritants ? Add to this the fact that it is 
indescribably seductive in its tendencv, begetting an um 



10 

controllable appetite in the patient, and that, by the very 
confession of its advocates, it is not to be compared with 
those stimulants, innocent in their character and mild in 
their operation, which a benevolent God has lavishly be- 
stowed upon us in surrounding nature, and you behold how 
impregnable is the position which we might build up, even 
out of the authorities quoted by ex-Go v. Andrew himself. 

It should be understood by you all that Dr. Anstie is one 
of the special pleaders for alcohol, and that any concession 
made by him will therefore properly bear the most liberal 
interpretation. In a quotation from the writings of J. F. 
~W. Johnson occur these words : " Fermented liquors, if 
otherwise suitable to the constitution, exercise a beneficial 
influence upon old people, and other weakly persons whose 
fat and tissues have begun to waste." 

In the first place, observe the kind of liquor designated. 
They are fermented liquors, and the characteristic of such 
liquors is that they contain but a very small per cent of 
alcohol, only one-fifth, it may be, of the amount which dis- 
tilled liquors contain. And none know better than ex Gov. 
Andrew himself that prohibition is chiefly directed, in this 
country, against the grosser liquors, as rum and gin, whisky 
and brandy. Though it cannot be denied that ales and the 
lighter wines are powerful predisposing causes to intemper- 
ance, confirming the appetite and irresistibly leading one 
to indulgence in the coarser stimulants. It is while crazed 
by the fierce stimulant of these that men kindle conflagra- 
tion and redden bludgeons with innocent blood. Should 
we admit the assertion of his authority, what weight would 
it give to his .argument, and how impotent it would be 
against the impregnable position of the prohibitionist ! 

But observe, further, the class of people upon whom these 
mild liquors are supposed to exert a beneficial influence. 
They are said to be " old people and iveakly persons." Are 
these the persons from the violence of whom society needs 
to be protected ? Are these the men and women who make 
night hideous with their drunken revelry, who lure the 
young and inexperienced to destruction, or whose hard 



11 

earned shillings enrich the unprincipled men from whose 
ill-gotten gains the ex-governor has been feed ? 

You well know that the rumsellers have filled their 
coffers, not by the sale of medicinal wines nor by the price 
of prescriptions for the " aged and infirm," but by pander- 
ing to the depraved appetite and the inflamed craving of 
men for the grosser liquors, and by laying an oppressive 
tax, without the sanction of law, upon the able-bodied in- 
dustry of the land. And when you come to examine this, 
and the same holds true of nearly all his other authorities, 
you discover that in reality they only affirm the medicinal 
uses of the lighter wines, which we are willing to concede, 
the same as we concede the use of other poisonous liquors. 

I cannot refrain from quoting a passage which he has 
culled from the writings of Dr. Pereira, for it furnishes an 
opportunity to note the opinion of Liebig, whom he has 
also dragged in the list of his authorities. Pereira writes as 
follows concerning beer : 

" Considered dietetically, beer possesses a threefold pro- 
perty : it quenches thirst ; it stimulates, cheers, and if taken 
in sufficient quantity, intoxicates ; lastly, it nourishes or 
strengthens." 

Dr. Pereira here states that beer " nourishes or strengthens." 
Over against this opinion I set the assertion of Liebig 
himself, which I quote, word for word, the Italics being his 
own. " "We can prove," says Liebig, " with mathematical 
certainty, that as much flour as can lie on the point of a table 
lenife is more nutritious than eight quarts of the best Bavarian 
beer ; that a person who is able to consume daily that 
amount (two gallons) of beer obtains from it in a ivhole year, 
in the most favorable case, exactly the amount of nutritive 
constituents which is contained in a five pound loaf of bread, 
or in three pounds of flesh" 

"What an admirable harmony, gentlemen, exists between 
his various authorities. Caged within the bars of the ex- 
Governor's argument, in imitation of the great showman's 
arrangement, what a "Happy Family" they constitute! 
Liebig and Pereira, Carpenter and Lewes, the antipodes of 



12 

scientific assertion, made to chatter in loving accord before 
the committee of a Massachusetts legislature, while sports 
and grave divines, rumsellers and their reverend supporters, 
express their delight in admiring applause. Never before 
was the white surplice of the clergy and the flash jewelry 
of the bar-tender in such close proximity. Never before 
were fingers accustomed to the leaves of the Bible and 
prayer-book laid in the moist palm of the punch maker. 
Never before were hands, consecrated to uplift the Cross, 
grasped by those whose nerves were trained and toughened 
by griping the bludgeon and swinging the slung-shot. 
Never before was the church so disgraced or talent so pros- 
tituted as when, before that committee, they clutched at the 
throat of a blessed reform, and wrestled to throw the virtue, 
patriotism and piety of the commonwealth, trained for the 
fight and put into the ring by the money of an iniquitous 
traffic, and cheered to the unnatural conflict by the hoarse 
voice of every groggery and brothel in Boston. 

The next assertion to which I call your attention is 
couched in the following words : 

" Life is only possible under incessant stimulus. Organic 
processes depend on incessant change, and this change is 
dependent on stimuli. The stimulus of food, the stimulus 
of air, the stimulus of exercise, are called natural, beneficial ; 
the stimulus of alcohol seems selected for special reprobation 
without cause being shown, except that people choose to 
say it is not natural." 

I do not know where another statement can be found, so 
utterly opposed, not only to the verdict of scientific inves- 
tigation, but also to the criminal history of modern times, 
as is the saying that " alcohol is selected for special repro- 
bation, without cause being slioivn except that people choose to 
say it is not natural" It would seem that no single state- 
ment could be made, ignoring .such a vast array of facts, 
opposed to so many carefully compiled statistics, and so 
utterly at variance with observation, as is this. "When any 
one asserts that the piety, the morality, the patriotism, and 
the learning of our time have no cause to cry out against 



alcohol, lie stultifies whatever modicum of intelligence lie 
may possess, and insults the knowledge of all. What a 
statement is this which claims that an agent which consigns 
sixty thousand unfortunates to a premature and hopeless 
grave each year in our country is reprobated "without 
cause /" That tears flow and prayers ascend, anxieties are 
experienced, and agony endured, " without cause /" That 
the only ground upon w T hich a lover of his country, of man- 
kind and of God can take exception to the use of alcoholic 
liquors is simply " because people choose to say they are 
not natural /" The audacity of such a statement places it 
beyond refutation. Like the assertion of the fool, " There 
is no God," the surroundings of nature, the teachings of 
history, and the experience of individual life, give it the 
lie. It is enough in itself to fatally weaken any argument 
addressed to the intelligence and moral convictions of the 
American people, and cause them to regard with suspicion 
all who base their theories or practices upon it. 

But if one passes further down the column, he will find 
that the assertion that alcohol is reprobated " without cause" 
is directly contradicted by the confession " that there is a 
peculiarity in alcohol which justifies in some degree its bad 
reputation, a peculiarity upon which all the mischief of 
intoxication depends; one which causes all the mise- 
ries so feelingly laid at its door." 

I am very glad that the gentleman ultimately discovered 
that it is not merely because "people choose to call it 
unnatural" that alcohol is condemned. It is pleasant to be 
assured, out of the mouth of such learned authority, that we 
do not contend against a mere figment of the brain, but a 
terrible reality ; that the groans we hear around us are not 
the imaginary sounds of our disturbed fancy ; that the tears 
we see fall are not entirely " without cause" and that the 
hand which grips the murderous knife and applies the in- 
cendiary's torch is, in very truth, nerved by a power that 
can be gauged and combated. But he goes on to say : 

" What is this peculiarity ? Nothing less than the fasci- 
nation of its virtue, the potency of its effect ; were it less 



14 

alluring, it would not lure to excess ; were it less potent it 
would not leap into such flames of fiery exaltation." 

Were there ever more harmless expressions for the most 
harmful of things ? What a wreath to encircle and perfume 
such a death's head ! What a robe to conceal such a hide- 
ous deformity ! " Its peculiarity," he says, " is nothing less 
than the fascination of its virtue , and the potency of its 
effect" What a beautiful definition, and what a debt of 
gratitude the world owes its author ! Check your indigna- 
tion, it seems to say, at the sight of outrages daily and 
nightly committed by men under the influence of this 
stimulant. They would not so act were it not for the " fas- 
cination of its virtue !" They are merely under the " potency 
of its effect !" " Were it less alluring it would not allure to 
excess; were it less potent, it would not leap into such 
flames of fiery exaltation !" 

My hearers, it matters not to the shipwrecked mariner, 
as he stands dripping on the beach barely rescued from 
death, what was the color or intensity of the false light 
which lured his ship to destruction : no, nor what was the 
"fascination" of its beams, or the "potency of its effect." 
He thinks and knows only this, and this alone will he 
testify, in the day of reckoning, that by it he was mis- 
directed, his property destroyed, and his life imperiled. 
No rhetorical flourish of speech, no finely worded phrases, 
can alleviate his sufferings or conceal the fatal tendency of 
the agent ; and to his dying day will he lift his voice, and 
that, too, rightfully, in condemnation of such fires and of 
hands which kindle them. Therefore I say, in respect to 
alcohol, that it makes no difference what definition you 
attach to it, or with what mystical phraseology you describe 
it, so long as the fact stands, unimpeached and unimpeach- 
able, that destruction of property and destruction of life 
come from its presence and use among men ; so long will 
every intelligent well-wisher of his race pronounce against 
it utter and continuous condemation. 

Another position which he assumes is expressed thus : 
" Not only have many physiologists and chemists adopted 



15 

this general theory, but even those others who modify the 
theory of Liebig, as stated by himself, nevertheless classify 
alcoholic drinks in the category of foods." 

Now, in making this assertion, the gentleman either 
spoke with knowledge or he did not ; and the statement 
that the " physiologists and chemists who modify the theory 
of Liebig classify alcohol in the category of foods" is either 
correct or incorrect. The truth or falsity can alone be 
proved by reference to authorities, and to authorities we 
appeal. 

Dr. Lionel S. Beale, M. D., F. K. S., Physician to King's 
College Hospital, says : " Alcohol does not act as food, does 
not nourish tissue ; nay, more," he adds, " it cuts short the 
life of rapidly growing cells, or causes them to live more 
slowly." 

Dr. Markham, in "The British Medical Journal," five 
years ago, summed up the question as follows : " The chem- 
ical theories upon which the extensive use of alcohol has 
been based, in disease and health, have at length been 
found untenable. Alcohol is not a supporter of combustion. 
It does not prevent the wear and tear of tissues. Part and 
probably the whole of it escapes from the body, and none 
of it, so far as we know, is assimilated or serves for the 
purpose of nutrition. It is, therefore, not a food in the eye 
of science." 

Even Prof. Yon Moleschott says : " Alcohol does not 
effect and direct restitution. It does not deserve the name of 
an alimentary principle." 

Dr. T. K. Chambers, in his " Clinical Lectures," says : 
" It is clear that we must cease to regard alcohol as in any 
sense an aliment, inasmuch as it goes out as it went in, and 
does not, as far as we know, leave any of its substance 
behind it." 

The eminent French chemists, Lallemand, Perrin and 
Duroy, in October, 1860, declared that " facts establish, 
from a physiological point of view, a line of demarkation 
betiveen alcohol and food." 

Dr. Periera, whose name is quoted frequently in the 



16 

argument, stated, in answer to a question addressed to him 
concerning this very point, that " in my Materia Medica I 
have characterized alcohol as a powerful, subtle and corro- 
sive poison. If I had to point out," he adds, " the injurious 
qualities of alcohol, I could soon prove that, though it 
evolves heat in burning, it is an obnoxious and most expen- 
sive fuel" 

Such is the testimony, clear and explicit, borne by some 
of the most noted chemists and medical men in the world. 
More and equally strong testimony I might quote were it 
necessary. 

The question arises : "Were the decisions of these men 
known to ex-Governor Andrew when he said that " even 
those chemists and physiologists who modify the theory of 
Liebig, nevertheless place alcohol in the category of 
foods V If they were known to him, what language is too 
strong to characterize the baseness of the concealment? 
If they were not known, what weight can be attached to 
the assertions of a speaker so ill-informed ? It is not possi- 
ble that decisions so prominent, both from their nature and 
authorship, were unknown to him, for these are the very 
men upon whose investigations a student in his inquiries 
would first fall, and I make no doubt but that the eye of 
ex-Governor Andrew had more than once rested upon these 
very words. I am, therefore, driven to the painful conclu- 
sion that the paid advocate of an unscrupulous cause, and 
not a searcher after truth, as he so affectingly declared him- 
self to be, was addressing the Legislature of Massachusetts, 
and through them the people of the commonwealth. Did 
not they who employed him hope that the gentleman's past 
reputation would give weight to an argument intrinsically 
weak, and a popular belief in the honesty of the advocate 
bewilder and confound those who felt at heart the baseness 
of his cause ? Relying on the fact that the masses are but 
little informed concerning the scientific conclusions of the 
day, and for the most part shut off from the possibility of 
personal investigation, these assertions, culled from this 
book and that, without the date of their publication being 



17 

given or the antecedents of their originators known, were 
projected abroad, in the hope that coming from such a 
source they would bear down all opposition, create division 
in the temperance ranks, and sow broadcast the seeds of 
skepticism toward those opinions and deductions which we 
are striving to make the basis of the reform. 

But behold the inherent strength of truth ! When most 
assaulted it is strongest ; when apparently overthrown it 
stands invincible ! Every effort at concealment serves but 
to give it needed publicity, and the twenty thousand dol- 
lars paid to ex-Governor Andrew out of the treasury of the 
rumsellers' league at Boston was in fact but voting such an 
amount for the propagation of Temperance, Truth and 
Principle. 

The next assertion to which I call your attention is the 
following : 

" The laboring man, who can hardly find bread and meat 
enough to preserve the balance between the formation and 
decay of his tissues, finds in alcohol an agent which, if taken 
in moderation, enables him, without disturbing his health, 
to dispense with a certain quantity of food, and yet keeps 
up the weight and strength of his body." 

That the effect of alcohol is to preserve the living tissue 
from waste, and make its transition to an effete form less 
rapid, we do not deny. We rather use it to make good our 
position against the use of alcoholic stimulants, for it is not 
the retention of half effete tissue in the system which is to 
be desired. Nature seeks rather to purge herself free, and 
that, too, right quickly, from such deleterious substances. 
The highest form of life is synonymous with the highest 
form of activity, and this highest form of activity is just 
the state in which the organism is most quickly delivered 
bf that waste and deadness which every motion of body 
and brain engenders. 

The state of health is one in which the system is most 
rapidly demolished and most rapidly rebuilt, in which the 
dead tissue is most speedily removed, and the vacancy 
thereby caused most speedily refilled with living fibre. It 



18 

is from the fact that alcohol directly and potently inter- 
feres with this rapid transition that we wage war upon it. 
We charge it with being the cause of detaining in the sys- 
tem elements and particles whose presence is powerfully 
opposed to health and health-giving action. 

What we deny is this : That alcohol adds one ounce of 
strength to the body, though it may enable it to retain its 
bulk. The bulk of the body does not measure its strength, 
and monstrous, indeed, is that logic which reasons that, 
because an agent bloats a man into a certain size, it, there- 
fore, is beneficial in its operation. It is not flesh and fat 
that men need, but nerves, bone and sinew. These are what 
and what alone gauge a man's strength. We do not want 
an agent to preserve the system from " wear and tear," but 
one which will supply the deficiency caused by such exer- 
tion quickly and naturally. That this position is true I 
might sustain by pages of quotations from the best authori- 
ties, but it is so consonant with your own observation and 
experience that other authority is needless. I quote fur- 
ther : 

" This review of the assumption that because alcohol, 
taken in excess, is injurious, it is therefore always a poison, 
will be soon ended. The statement of the proposition 
would seem to exhibit its fallacy, for it is arguing from 
abuse to use, and it is denying that difference in quantity 
can produce difference in quality." 

This is another specimen of the ex-Governor's reasoning, 
or rather of his pretentious statement of what he calls facts. 
When he says that the temperance men claim " that, 
because alcohol taken in excess is injurious, it is therefore 
always a poison," he either wilfully or ignorantly misstates 
our position. I challenge him to quote a sentence from the 
writings of any author, worthy to be called an authority, 
making such an assumption the ground of our doctrine ; 
and, when the gentleman fabricates a formula, and puts it 
into the mouth of temperance teachers as their own, and not 
his, he does that which is unworthy of a man of candor or 
of power, and, I think I may say, though with some hesita- 



19 

lion, unworthy even of himself. We do not argue that, 
because alcohol taken in excess is injurious, it is therefore 
always a poison, but we claim that, taken in any degree, 
however small, it is a poison ; that its essential charac 
teristic is poisonous ; that it is poison in the gallon, and. 
poison in the drop ; that it is placed in the materia medica 
side by side with arsenic, and strychnine, and henbane; 
that its dilution by water alters not its nature, though of 
course it does weaken its intensity ; that the amount makes 
no difference with its inherent and elementary constitution ; 
that beer, having seven per cent of alcohol, has seven per 
cent of a rank poison in it ; that whisky, having fifty per 
cent of alcohol, has fifty per cent of rank poison in it ; and 
to what extremities must not a man like ex-Go v. Andrew 
be driven when he is forced to ascribe to us a position which 
we do not and never did occupy, making us thereby sub- 
scribe to a formula which we need not be told by our oppo- 
nent is " unsound !" If it gives him pleasure to strike at 
and knock over men of straw, which his own hands and 
not ours have built up, far be it from me to deprive him 
of such happiness. If his mental fiber is of that kind as to 
delight in such pugilism, or his vanity such as to plume 
itself over such victories, we cordially commend him to a 
continuance of his exercises. But we assure him that he 
must not expect to palm off his trash upon the American 
people undetected, nor have such assertions published and 
sent out, franked with the authority of his name, and they 
remain uncontradicted. The interrogation constantly arises, 
as one peruses his address, Did the gentleman know that 
he was misstating the position of his opponents and mis- 
quoting their authorities ? If so, I leave him to release 
himself from the odium of the conclusion ; if not, I marvel 
at the brevity of his studies, and apply to him the sentiment 
which he strove to apply to us : 

" A little learning is a dangerous thing ; 
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring." 

In order to prove that alcohol is food, he has made a 
quotation from Dr. Brinton, couched in these words : 



20 

" On the part of the medical profession, I think I may 
say that we have long since begun to believe that those 
medicines which really do benefit our patients, act in one 
way or another as foods, and that some of the most decidedly 
poisonous substances are those which oiler, in the form of 
small doses, the strongest example of a true food action." 

Upon this point I would say : Should we admit all this 
to be true, it would only show that in a certain unusual and 
medicinal sense, alcoholic action resembles to some extent 
food action ; and the utmost that could be claimed, by way 
of conclusion from such a premise, would be this : That 
certain medicinal agents, alcohol included, had upon a 
diseased organism (for of course an organism in such a state 
is alone subject to medical treatment) an eifect analogous 
to the eifect of food ; and how he could reason from such 
authority, in reference to such an effect, that the ordinary 
effect of alcohol is beneficial, we cannot see. How he can 
reason from the action of an agent upon a diseased' system 
to the action of that same agent upon a healthy system, we 
leave him to show. But we are not willing to admit even 
thus much, uor can we comprehend how Dr. Brinton can 
speak in the name of the medical profession, of which he 
is only one of the inferior lights, in support of a theory to 
which the mass of that profession are opposed. 

That you may see I do not speak vaguely upon this point, 
I will quote to you a few of the authorities opposed to this 
theory of Brinton, that " medicinal action resembles food 
action." 

The wise Montaigne says : " The nature that would eat 
rhubarb, like buttered parsnips, would frustrate the use and 
virtue of it. It must be something to trouble and disturb 
the stomach, that must physic and cure it : thus one ill is 
cured by another." 

A modern writer, Dr. Truman, says : " ~No disease can 
be cured without injury to the health, for the remedies 
employed always cause some excessive and unnatural action 
in the body which lessens its powers." 

Dr. Pereira says, speaking upon this point (an alcoholic 
advocate, by the way) : " For this reason I recommend the 



21 

weakest table beer to the healthy, because even India pale 
ale (one of the lightest ales) is injurious as diet." The 
same authority, Dr. Pereira (and I love to quote his conclu- 
sions, because he is one of the ex-Governor's favorites), 
says, in relation to alcohol : " By itself, it cannot form 
tissues, since it is deficient in some of their essential ingre- 
dients, namely, nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorous." So 
much for the theory of Dr. Brinton, and the " food action" 
of alcohol founded upon it." 

You all perceive how that, by the process which the 
Governor uses, namely, selecting a few sentences from the 
writings of irresponsible parties, and by remembering to 
forget that their assumptions have either been disproved or 
recanted, an argument might be constructed to prove any- 
thing. In geology, by selecting examples from its erratic 
advocates, the wildest theory might be promulgated. In 
astronomy, what false views might not apparently be proven 
by a skillful compilation made from the writings of its many 
antagonistic teachers. The process is short, and the method 
devoid of even the merit of ingenuity. It is this : quote at 
random, withhold dates, ignore the fact that their theories 
have long since been disproved, and project this rehash of 
exploded doctrines with the audacity and eloquence of an 
ex-Governor of Massachusetts ! 

As the gentleman drew near to the conclusion of his 
argument under review, he waxed exceedingly confident, 
and exclaimed : 

"This much, at all events, is clear, viz: That the Legis- 
lature of Massachusetts has no knowledge, and has no 
means of knowing, that the classification, (so commonly and 
so authoritatively made,) by which alcohol, as found in 
certain drinks, is included in the category of foods, is not 
correct." 

Of course I cannot tell what facilities the " Legislature 
of Massachusetts " has to acquire knowledge upon this or 
any other topic ; but, if the assertion of the ex-Governor is 
correct, then must they be cut off from even the ordinary 
avenues of education. If not, if they have been at all 



22 

favored, if their isolation from the great world of scientific 
inquiry is not complete, if the appliances of letters are not 
totally unknown to them, then surely must this promulga- 
tion of the gentleman have excited their risibilities, and 
they must have felt, that to construct his argument and to 
secure his fee out of the treasury of the " Public Safety 
Association," he was compelled to ignore and insult their 
commonest intelligence. 

Let us examine, then, this assumption that, in regard to 
alcohol as a food, the Legislature of Massachusetts do not 
know, and have no means of knowing anything, in order to 
relieve the gentlemen of that legislature from the odium of 
such stupendous ignorance. 

Dr. Monroe, F. L. S., in a treatise upon the " Physiolog- 
ical effects of Alcohol," which can be purchased at the cost 
of sixpence per copy, and therefore brought, I think I may 
safely assert, within the pecuniary capacity of every legis- 
lator, says : " Every writer upon Toxicology has classified 
alcohol as a narcotic or a narcotico acrid poison. For proof, 
I refer you to the works of Prof. Orfila, Dr. Pereira, Prof. 
Christison, Dr. Taylor, and other eminent authorities." 
" Alcohol," he goes on to say, " is a powerf 'id narcotic poison, 
and if a large dose be taken no antidote is known to its effect." 
He then goes on to prove that by its action upon the saliva, 
the gastric juice, the chyme, the albumen, the pepsin, and 
the blood, alcohol is always a rank and deadly poison." Dr. 
T. K. Chambers, physician to the Prince of Wales, says : 
" It is clear that we must cease to regard alcohol as in any 
sense a food" 

Dr. Markham says, in summing up certain lengthy and 
able discussions in the British medical Journals upon the 
question " Is alcohol food or physic '?" " we are bound in 
conscience to boldly declare the logical and inevitable con- 
clusion that alcohol is not food ; that if its imbibition be of 
service, it is so only to man in an abnormal condition, and 
that ordinary social indulgence in alcoholic drinks is medi- 
cally speaking, very unphysiological, and prejudicial." But 
how could it be " unphysiological, and prejudicial," if the ac- 



23 

tion of alcohol upon the stomach is like the action of milk, and 
meat, and other foods ? 

. Dr. Carpenter not only asserts it to be a poison, but pro- 
ceeds to minutely point out, for the guidance of his profes- 
sion, the mode, nature, and terrible suddenness of its effects. 

Prof. E. L. Youmans, in his essay entitled " Alcohol and 
the Constitution of Man," says : " There is but one word 
in our language which describes the relation of alcohol to 
the human system, and that word is poison." And near 
the close of his article he declares that " there is no escape 
from the conclusion that alcohol, in whatever form or quan- 
tity, is a poison in all the common cases of its employment." 

But why collate further, or why build higher the refuta- 
tion under which the ex- Governor's assertion|must lie and 
writhe, that a " Massachusetts legislature has no knowledge 
and no means of knowing that alcohol should be placed in 
the category of poison and not of food ?" Is Eoston devoid 
of books ? Are the legislators of the old commonwealth so 
lacking in means and culture as not to have in their posses- 
sion or be able to purchase the most ordinary facilities to 
enlightenment ? I submit to your intelligent decision, in 
view of the authorities quoted and a vast multitude of others 
which time would not allow me to quote, numerous beyond 
mention, and all witnessing to the same fact, if the state- 
ment of the gentleman is not a marvel of audacity, or a 
unique exhibition of ignorance ; and what reliance can be 
placed upon the reasoning of a person who builds his argu- 
ment upon mere asseverations, reiterated not only without 
any proof, but directly in the face of decisions from which 
there can be no appeal. And what fuller manifestation, or 
surer evidence of the weakness of his cause, when its advocate 
must resort to such ill-concealed trickery, and rely upon the 
mere momentum of his assertions to defend it from over- 
throw ? How disastrous to the cause and advocate alike 
will be the recoil of that blow, which was directed, not only 
against the moral impulses and upward tendencies of the 
age, but against the accumulated and accumulating testi- 
mony of impartial and ever progressive science ! . 



24 

The gentleman makes a vast parade over the authorities 
quoted, and among them he instances Dr. James Jackson, 
whom he pronounces to be the '* is estor of the medical pro- 
fession in America." I was led to examine carefully the 
quotation from this authority, both because a great flourish 
is made at the introduction of it, and because of the honor- 
able standing which Dr. Jackson occupies. I am surprised 
that his testimony should be introduced, for it seems to op- 
pose rather than assist the gentleman in his attempts to read 
certain conclusions. 

But, first, let me say that because Dr. Jackson is " be- 
loved, venerable and most eminent," it does not follow 
thereby that he is best qualified to pronounce correctly 
upon this issue ; for the inv estigations upon which prohibi- 
tionists rely are those of modern chemists and recent times. 
Indeed, the last fifteen years have brought to the profession 
by far the larger part of what they know concerning the 
nature and action of alcohol. 

It is with this branch of medical science as it is with geo- 
logy. The past is of little account, but the present teems 
with revelation, and the future is big with promise. Many 
a younger man is better able, although confessedly less 
wise in other respects than one so aged, to pronounce upon 
this matter ; and the reason of it is because in his day the 
question has been chiefly agitated. Prof. Siliiman, the 
elder, was " venerable and learned," and yet no one would 
have gone to him during the last five years of his life to as- 
certain the latest deductions and methods of his favorite 
science. In astronomy the name of 01 instead is no longer 
the most luminous, for other stars have risen, since his de- 
clined, toward which the eyes of the world are being 
directed. This observation, under the circumstances, I 
think you all perceive is reasonable and just, and that the 
exception is made not to disparage the reputation of Dr. 
Jackson, but to point out, as truth requires, his proper con- 
nection and relation to the cause. But what does Dr. Jack- 
son say ? I quote his words as found in the article under 
review : 



25 

" I would never order them to one whom I suspected to 
be deficient in prudence and self-control. But, keeping 
these things in mind, I have often directed the use even of 
brandy. In doing this, I have been in the habit of saying 
to tlie"patient, ' If I ever hear of your indulging to excess 
in the use of this, or any similar article, I will call on you 
and exhort you to stop.' " 

Dr. Jackson says : " I would never order alcohol for one 
whom I suspected to be deficient in prudence and self-con- 
trol ;" that is, he would not merely forbid it as an article of 
diet, but he would guard against it most carefully, and 
limit its amount most strictly, even when medicinally ad- 
ministered. Ladies and gentlemen, is not this the very 
doctrine of prohibitionists ? Is not this the very rock into 
which the shaft of prohibition is sunk ? Among whom do 
we seek to restrict the use of stimulants, save among those 
not only "suspected" but known to be deficient in self-con- 
trol ?" We plant our feet upon the very platform of his 
authority. We thank him for the quotation, and declare 
that, were it not for the absence of " self-control" prohibi- 
tion would be unnecessary and our crusade farcical. May 
we not safely turn to the gentleman and say : Adopt the 
principles of your author; speak as he spoke ; argue as he 
argued ; act as he acted ; and your practice will not only 
be in harmony with your quotation, but every cause of 
difference between us be removed. How lar°'e a fee, think 
you, ex-Gov. Andrew would have obtained from the rum- 
sellers' treasury at Boston if he had assumed the position of 
Dr. Jackson, and charged them that they had no legal or 
moral right to build up their traffic upon the appetite of 
those devoid of " prudence and self-control ?" 

I can but quote further from this admirable witness. He 
says : 

" I exhort all young people in health not to adopt the 
practice of drinking wine. I deprecate everything which 
shall tend to intemperance, and I believe that many men 
suffer from the use of wine and spirits, even in a moderate 
way." 

But how the doctor should exhort all young people " not 



26 

to adopt the practice of drinking wine," if wine is a " food," 
I cannot perceive. For " wine" substitute beef-steak, and 
make the doctor exhort all young people not to adopt the 
practice of eating beef-steak ! Or, if wine is nutritious like 
milk (as this learned ex-Governor asserts), imagine this ven- 
erable "Nestor of the medical profession in America" 
addressing a solemn adjuration to mothers not to allow their 
offspring to form the habit of drinking milk ; or substitute 
water for wine (and the ex-Governor places both in the 
category of " stimuli," you remember), and make this gray- 
headed physician testify : "I believe that many men suffer 
from the use of water, even in a moderate way !" 

My friends, is not this pitiable, that such talent, such 
learning, such reputation should be prostituted to bolster up 
such a damnable cause? Were there ever authorities so 
contradictory or positions more inconsistent ? Was the 
painfulness of the position ever more apparent, or the con- 
tortions of the juggler ever more fearful? Sad indeed are 
the repetitions of history, when this mighty Sanhedrim of 
the Rumocracy, more bitter and cruel than the ancient 
Pharisee, can purchase, to effect their base purposes, the 
services of a man who has hitherto been regarded by the 
American people as one of the faithful and favored circle. 

In the argument under review 1 find these words : " No 
nation known to us has ever passed into the inventive con- 
dition of even rudimentary civilization, without largely 
indulging in the stimulant of alcohol." Of course the in- 
ference is, that the world is largely indebted to alcohol for 
whatever of inventive civilization it possesses. 

My hearers, no law is better ascertained in nature than 
this : That the mind of man finds its highest activity when 
most separated from the indulgence of the fiesh. If thought 
is most free and active in its exercises when the thinker is 
most careful and rigid in his diet, a theory which science, 
observation and experience unite to confirm, then must the 
position herein taken be totally unsound. To say that 
modern civilization, which is the consummate flower of 
intellectual growth and spiritual energy, was fed by juices 



27 

drawn from so rank a soil, and blossomed by so fierce a beat 
as that of an alcoholic stimulant, is to introduce a formula 
which stamps the processes of human development with the 
seal of grossness, and erases the broad distinctions which do 
and must forever separate brutalizing from refining tenden- 
cies. To say that that which bewilders and confuses can 
make lucid and clear ; which exhilarates with an unnatural 
energy or stupefies like a deadly narcotic ; which impover- 
ishes when wealth is needed ; which cuts the sinews of 
industry, imperils commerce and breaks the wheel of manu- 
facture ; which makes gross and imbrutes the soul ; which 
presses a man down into the gutter and filth of intellectual, 
social, and spiritual degradation ; to say that this has been 
the basis and the chief agent of the world's progressive 
movement is to reach the climax of audacious assertion and 
suggest doubts as to the sanity of the speaker. 

Was the Principia of Newton the result of wine-bibbing ? 
Was the Philosophy of Bacon the offspring of intoxication ? 
Did Milton pen his mighty Epic under the inspiration of 
alcohol ? Did David compose those sacred melodies which 
vibrate through all time, and will send their undulations of 
holy harmony down to the remotest age, in a fit of debau- 
chery ? Did Franklin chase and capture the lightning 
under the bloody spur of stimulants? Was Goodyear a 
drunkard? Are we indebted to alcohol for the telegraph? 
Should we be grateful to whisky for the printing press? Is 
Cyrus W. Field beholden to Bourbon ? Are the liberty and 
prosperity which we enjoy in any degree clue to the drink- 
ing customs of our sires ? Has any one the impiety to say 
that the inventive faculties of man, wherein he most closely 
resembles in essence and action the Divine Intellect, require 
for their support and direction the assistance of an agent 
which God never created, and which to-day more obstructs 
the beneficent development of his providence than any 
other ingredient of sin ? 

My hearers, why analyze and sift such an argument 
further ? The game is not worthy of pursuit. Although I 
make no boast of familiarity with letters, and lav no claim 



28 

to liberal culture, yet do I say that I can recall, in all liter- 
ature, nothing worthy of mention (unless it be this argument 
of the ex-Governor) concerning which there could arise the 
least suspicion that it was written under the influence of 
stimulants. 

I have now closed my review of ex-Gov. Andrew's 
authorities and the application which he has made of them. 
If I have not wholly failed, many of his statements have 
been shown to be mere assertions, and many of his quota- 
tions either untrustworthy or else at variance with the very 
conclusion he desires to establish. But, ere we close, let 
us turn from the consideration of what was spoken, and 
ascertain, if we may, the motive of the speaker. If it be 
objected that the character of the argument, and not the 
motive of the orator, is what concerns us, I respond : Not 
so ! And I ask your attention for a moment while I state 
the reasons I have for so saying. And first, I inquire in 
behalf of what and of whom was this speech made ? At 
the start, I respond, the " petition " was professedly made 
in the interest of the temperance reform, and the ex- 
Governor assumed the role of a temperance advocate. He 
gave himself out to be the reformer of the reformers, and 
professed that he was striving to protect the cause of 
sobriety and order from the unwise and impracticable advo- 
cacy of its friends. If this had been the case, far different 
would have been his position to-day, and far different would 
have been our feelings in respect to him. "While we should 
have opposed him, we should have opposed him as friend 
opposes friend. Our difference would have been only one 
of judgment, and the best method of energizing to obtain 
the same desirable end. But, as the examination pro- 
gressed, the real object of the movement was discovered, 
and the true character and design of its champion revealed. 
It was soon perceived that this movement for the repeal of 
the prohibitory and the enactment of a license law neither 
originated among nor was supported by the temperance 
men of Massachusetts. They had no part or lot in the mat- 
t er. It was also discovered that ex-Gov. Andrew, instead 



29 

of voluntarily contributing his talents to secure such legis- 
lation as was needed to break up the iniquitous traffic in 
liquor, was, in fact, a paid agent of that traffic, to protect 
it from the pressure of legislation already on the statutes, 
the partial enforcement of which had already curtailed its 
revenue, and was threatening its entire overthrow. 

From that moment the entire character of the conflict 
and of its prominent champion was changed. Back of ex- 
Gov. Andrew stood the rumsellers' organization of Boston, 
called " The Public Safety Association," organized to defy 
law and to protect its members from the police of the com- 
monwealth. The thin mask of self-laudatory professions, 
which the ex-Governor had assumed, was stripped from his 
face, and the intended imposition stood exposed. The bar- 
rooms of Boston had arrayed themselves against the 
churches of the State. Boston, begrimed and soaked in 
liquor, backed up by the red-faced countenance of her 
" solid " men and the sanction of her wine-drinking clergy, 
challenged the clean-faced and virtue-loving rural popula- 
tions to the conflict ; and, at the close of every clause of the 
argument under review, the groggeries of Boston stamped 
and cheered the ex-Governor to the echo. 

His argument is therefore to be read as the rumsellers' 
argument, and his asseverations of honesty to receive just 
so much credence as should be attached to the professions 
of a man who receives twenty thousand dollars for making 
them. 

But why was ex-Governor Andrew chosen to be the 
champion of this black-hearted cause and of blacker- 
hearted men ? Was it because he excelled all other law- 
yers of his native State in legal ability and acumen ? By 
no means. For others there are who stand far higher than 
he in judicial attainments. It was not his legal ability, but 
it was the sanction of his name and the potency of his wide 
reputation that they wanted. It was not the ingenuity of 
the argument, but the acknowledged popularity of the 
author, which made his advocacy so valuable in their 
eyes. They hoped to divide the councils of the temperance 



30 

men, to stun and bewilder the country, by the fact that 
ex-Governor Andrew advocated their measure. And, for 
aught I know, one secret of this unwritten conspiracy, 
potent in the councils of the " Public Safety Association,'' 
was this : That no other public man, who was or ever had 
been associated with the temperance cause, could be bought 
to undertake so Judas-like a proceeding. 

But how weak are the counsels of the wicked ! How 
have their projects recoiled on their own heads, and another 
illustration is given us, another proof passed into history, 
that great men in America are great only as they ally 
themselves with great principles. The effort by which they 
hoped to divide temperance men has knit them more firmly 
together. Instead of carrying conviction, the words of ex- 
Governor Andrew have aroused only indignation, and Mas- 
sachusetts now, as of old time, loving principles more than 
men, speaking through the lips of Senator Wilson at 
Tremont Temple, from Berkshire to Barnstable repudiates 
her favorite son. I do not know of any page of New 
England history whereon is recounted a sadder fall than 
this, of one whose name the country has been accustomed 
to associate, not only with patriotism, but with everything 
noble and true. It is with no feeling other than sincere 
regret that I say that even here in this audience are not a 
few wdio will henceforth regard the author of the argument 
I have reviewed as one who, by a foolish and wicked act, 
divorced our confidence and admiration forever from him. 
But what are men ? They rise and fall ; but Truth endures. 
Over their failures and follies, over prostrated characters 
and reputations lost, God rolls his chariot on. And we, 
who would be true to Him and to the race, should have no 
favorites save Truth, and Heaven, and God. 

I have thus, ladies and gentlemen, passed in review 
portion of the argument of ex-Governor Andrew. I have 
striven to deal fairly with him, while I remained faithful to 
the cause he attacked. The effort is neither as full nor as 
satisfactory to myself as I wish it were, and feel under 
other circumstances it might have been. I undertook it 



31 

while under the pressure of many labors and distracted by 
many cares. Nor have facilities been mine which money 
might have purchased and the co-operation of assistants 
secured me. The task, imperfectly wrought though it be, 
is ended, and to your careful perusal, when the words which 
I have spoken have been laid before you, I commend my 
remarks. If they shall be the means of quickening thought, 
of awaking inquiry, or of confirming to any degree correct 
opinions already formed, I shall not have labored wholly in 
vain ; but, if this happiness should be denied me, I shall 
still have the pleasure of knowing that I attempted a 
worthy undertaking, and, though my advocacy was weak, 
the cause advocated remains strong. 

The reform will go on. It will go on because its princi- 
ples are correct and its progress beneficent. The wave, 
which has been gathering force and volume for these fifty 
years, will continue to roll, because the hand of the Lord 
is under and back of it, and the denunciations of its oppo- 
sers, and the bribed eloquence of the unprincipled, cannot 
check, no, nor even retard, the onward movement of its 
flow. Upon the white crest of it thousands will be lifted 
to virtue and honor, and thousands more, who foolishly and 
wickedly put themselves in front of it, will be submerged 
and swept away. The crisis through which this reform is 
passing will do good. It will reveal its friends and unmask 
its foes. The concussions above and around us will purify the 
atmosphere, and when the clouds have parted and melted 
away we shall breathe purer airs and behold sunnier skies. 

For the address of ex-Governor Andrew every temper- 
ance man and woman should be devoutly thankful ! not to 
him, for his reasoning was neither correct nor his motive, I 
fear, pure ; but rather unto Him whose eye, noting even 
the downfalling of a bird, foresaw and allowed this to occur, 
that our hearts might be confirmed in the justice of our 
cause, and our courage stimulated by the manifested weak- 
ness of our foes ; not to him, rich to-day with the money of 
those who built their fortune on the poverty of others, who 
filled their coffers until they overflowed with the hard- 



32 

earned wages of the poor and the tempted, and against 
whom the cries of the starving and the homeless ascend, 
and will ascend hereafter in judgment, but to Him who 
taketh his foes in their own net, and who maketh the plot- 
tings of the unrighteous to praise Him. 

We know not, indeed, what is ahead ; what desertion of 
apparent friends may occur; what temporary defeat we 
may be called upon to bear, nor against what intrigues we 
may have to guard. For one, I count on the opposition of 
parties. I anticipate the double dealing of political lead- 
ers. The cause more than once may be betrayed into the 
hands of its foes ; more than once be deserted, as it has 
been and is now being, by the very men who gained what- 
ever of reputation they have by their advocacy of its prin- 
ciples. But these reflections do not move me. No good 
cause can be lost by the faithlessness of the unfaithful, no 
true principle overthrown by the opposition of its enemies, 
nor the progress of any reform, sanctioned of God and pro- 
motive of human weal, long retarded by any force or com- 
bination which can be marshaled against it. Over thrones 
and proud empires the Gospel has marched, treading bay- 
onets, and banners, and emblems of royalty proudly under 
her feet, and out of that Gospel no principle or tendency, 
essential to the kingdom that is yet to be established on the 
earth, can be selected, so Aveak or so repugnant to fallen 
man as not to receive, ere the coming of that kingdom, its 
triumphant vindication. 

On this rock I plant my feet. To this granite column I 
tie my hope. Believing that God is, and is both the guide 
and strength ener of those who strive to serve Him, in any 
sphere or by any method, I shall labor on, waiting His will. 
I shut my eyes and stop my ears to all else but this. Am 
I in the right ? Is this cause worthy ? Is the end striven 
for desirable ? Nor can I doubt that this course is wise. 
And verily do I feel that they who follow in it, intimidated 
by no threat, swerved by no pressure, will have all that 
good men crave here or hereafter — the approbation of a 
conscience void of offense, and the favor of Almighty God. 



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